Dassault Makes Major Play in the Cloud

While the noise around cloud computing has been deafening in enterprise software circles, it's been fairly quiet when it comes to CAD and PLM software. That is, until recently -- Dassault Systèmes stepped up to the plate, becoming the first major player in this sector to unveil a comprehensive cloud strategy for its entire portfolio of 3D design and PLM products.

Some of the leading CAD and PLM providers have long offered hosted versions of their platforms, and several have experimented over the last year, releasing cloud-based offerings that perform very specific functions -- for example, Autodesk's AutoCAD WS, an online collaboration service for editing and sharing DWG files. Not one, however, has ventured as far as Dassault Systèmes. The company announced a multi-pronged cloud strategy that includes a deal with Amazon Web Services to provide the Infrastructure-as-a-Service; a strategic investment in Outscale, a startup Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) provider; and 3DStore, its own online store.

Fabien Fedida, Dassault's senior director of global marketing, called the announcement "a big deal for Dassault and a big announcement for the PLM industry." It's notable, he told Design News in an interview, because it brings the full PLM stack to the cloud, including the 3D authoring piece, not just the core Product Data Management (PDM) functionality.

Dassault laid the foundation for the cloud announcement three years ago when it officially announced its Version 6 platform, which, from the start, has worked in online mode. What that means, Fedida explained, is that Version 6 has rich applications and rich clients, but data can be stored on another server somewhere else. So, for example, an engineer could log in and access design data from home via a simple Web connection. "When we speak of online, we mean the server powering the application is in a different location from where the worker is," he says. "Previously, the server was within the company's network -- with this announcement, the server powering the application is outside the network in the cloud."

Dassault Systèmes is placing its bet on the cloud for a number of reasons. First, it sees the delivery paradigm as an important way to help companies (particularly small and mid-sized shops) reduce the administrative burden around PLM. It allows them to benefit from 3D modeling, simulation, and virtual prototyping technology without having to add additional IT infrastructure and without having to make long-term volume commitments to software. The proliferation of mobile devices is another big enabler. "If the interface to the world is going to be through mobile devices, then data has to be on the cloud or it won't work," Fedida said.

To that end, the full complement of DS Version 6 applications (CATIA, SolidWorks, SIMULIA, DELMIA, ENOVIA, 3DVIA, Exalead, and 3DSWYM) are now running in the cloud, thanks to the partnership with Amazon Web Services. Dassault Systèmes is leveraging the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2), in addition to the Amazon Elastic Block Store (EBS) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) as its core cloud infrastructure. Outscale will manage the SaaS-based operation, ensuring customers of the on-demand applications 24X7 service, up-time, resiliency, and all the other buzzword benefits that go hand-in-hand with the cloud.

The 3DStore will serve a range of cloud-based 3D and PLM services, including the 3DSWYM social community and innovation platform, access to Draftsight (a free 2D package) and 3DVIA, and access to applications from partners and customers. Also available on the site will be n!fuze, a design collaboration subscription service tailored to the needs of SolidWorks users, and n!Volve, the subscription service that lets users work concurrently using CATIA, DELMIA, SIMULIA, and ENOVIA on the cloud in a secure environment. N!Volve's core collaboration capabilities are priced at $330 a seat per month, with a three-month-term minimum, with entry-level V6 3D authoring capabilities another $150 a seat per month. There is a menu of available services around the other Dassault offerings, priced accordingly.

To get up and running in the cloud, users simply go to the 3DStore, and within minutes of purchasing a service, they are live and ready to go (this assumes there is already a V6 client installed). If a company or design team doesn't have a V6 client, it will be directed to a VAR to purchase the client. It can then purchase online instances of other Dassault applications via the 3DStore.

Stan Przybylinski, director of research at CIMdata, agrees a certain segment of design professionals will want to access their tools via the cloud (i.e., young engineers), yet he cautions that concerns around security and availability with this delivery model still linger. For the most part, he says, engineers just want tools that work, regardless of how they access them. "People want solutions that can help solve their most pressing problems," he said. "The only time they're going to care that they came from the cloud is when the Internet is down and they can't use them."

Accompanying the cloud announcement, Dassault Systèmes also released the V6R2012 upgrade. Among the highlights of the new platform are additional interoperability capabilities based on XML schema and Web services between Version 6 and other PDM systems, in addition to system engineering advances in CATIA V6R2012. Specifically, the upgrade now offers full RFLP definition and traceability within the software.

With cloud computing becoming so widespread -- with even our music and video collections slipping up to the cloud -- how do the older terms like software-as-a-service (SaaS) and hosted services fit in? Do they remain distinct models, or are they simply earlier terms for what is essentially cloud computing?

It is confusing and the definitions vary depending on who you are talking to. Generally the hosted model is the older interpretation when a company like an IBM, for example, or a hosting provider manage the instance of particular application off-site in their data center. With this approach, there is typically dedicated hardware in one location running the applications--not exactly cloud computing by today's standards since you don't have the scalability and elasticity of that model. SaaS, on the other hand, fits the more modern intrepretation of cloud and that's what Dassault is doing via it's partnership with Outscale. Amazon provides the cloud computing infrastructure (what's known as infrastructure-as-a-service) and Outscale handles the management/provisioning of the Dassault applications delivered in a SaaS model.

This is a very smart play for Dassault. As you note, this enables them to broaden their market from their high-end enterprise stronghold downward and target mid-sized businesses. The latter, which are less likely to be candidates for expensive, on-premise licenses, might be enticed to try the pay as you go model. OTOH, I notice that Dassault is being careful not to undercut their traditional business model, by setting fairly high-end pricing for the cloud offering. Which, in turn, makes it less attractive to smaller businesses. So like all traditional software vendors moving to the cloud (or SaaS, as Rob mentions), they're walking a tightrope.

They are indeed, Alex. And they've implemented some kind of system where you specify a VAR partner when purchasing as well so as to not cut off that avenue of support. The question then may be did they go far enough with all the elements (price, accessibility, etc.) that are typically the hallmarks of the SaaS delivery model.

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